Being grateful...

I've got  confession to make. I used to think that Hubs tended to be melodramatic everytime he's back in KL and exclaim how clear or how much he misses the clear blue skies in KL. At that time, I was still pretty much based in KL and commuted every now and then to Jakarta. Clear blue skies were pretty much, ermmm, an every day happenin', if you get what I mean.

My recent 2 weeks stint in Jakarta somehow changed my view subtlely, I realised. While I was in Jakarta, every day I woke up to hazy skies and hardly any rain. There was only one night that it rained, and even that did not clear the skies the next morning.

And so when I reach KL couple of days ago, while in the cab making my way home, I was struck for the first time of how blue KL skies are and being grateful for clean air and clean skies for the first time. And that evening, this is what enthralled me and I captured on my iPhone - the silvery full moon against a backdrop of clear blue evening sky. Of course, I conveniently forgot that mid-autumn festival is around the corner and the Chinese in me believe that the moon is the prettiest at this time of the year. But having said that, I AM still grateful to be back in KL and witness the beauty in Malaysia that is untarnished by development.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival folks!

Up up and away @ Skye Bar Jakarta

Skye Bar is the latest F&B outlet from the Ismaya group. As the name suggest, it is situated on the 56th floor of Menara BCA at where Plaza Grand Indonesia Shopping Town is. We came here sometime in July this year, to meet up with Hubs's cousin and a few of cousin's friends.

We were there around 4pm on a public holiday and the bar area is already packed, with all tables fully booked. Jakartans are very hang-out folks - every new and happenin' cafe/bar/restaurants are usually packed to the brim in the first few months of opening. And Skye Bar is not exempted.

We end up sitting along the walkway like some of these folks in this picture, with a foldable small table open up for us to "mark" our territory! Lol!

 It's no brainer why Skye Bar is HUGELY popular at this moment. On a clear day (which is a rarity in Jakarta), it offers a beautiful skycraper view of the CBD area. It wasn't very clear that day we went. And this was the best I could do with my camera.

 Some night view of the city skyline...

And how the bar area looks like at night...

We had dinner at the restaurant as well. The main meals were pretty good but I thought that the desserts were unusual and memorable. I had the "Pineapple Nachos" where cubes of roasted spiced pineapple were tossed with pineapple marshmallow and chocolate coated nachos, and finished off with mint anglaise and coriander. I enjoyed my dessert, a surprise for me-self because i'm not a dessert person. The dessert just somehow comes together really well although individually they were rather odd. Another friend ordered the "Tape Creme Brulee" which is tapai of casava with palm sugar anglaise on the side. I had a taste of this and it too was very creamy and yummy!  Too bad no pictures of the food because the ones I took using Hubs's iPhone were accidentally deleted by him before I could download them. 

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SKYE Bar Jakarta
Menara BCA - 56th Floor
Jl. M.H. Thamrin No.1, Jakarta

Eats: Beautika Manadonese Restaurant

Personally, I think introduction to Indonesian culture and food isn't complete without stepping into a Manadonese restaurant. And at Beautika, you definitely won't go wrong. Initially when Hubs brought me here a year ago, I was wondering how does a restaurant ends up with a name like Beautika. Well, wonder no more. Apparently Beautika had started off as a beauty saloon but has since converted into a restaurant that serves up authentic Manadonese cuisines that guarantees a very spicy and hot dining experience. 

As you can see here, a wide variety of vegetables, seafood and meats served up on bain-marie. What we did was to ask the server to recommend a few house specialty as well as Hub picked out what was good when he was here previously.

And this is what we ordered. Basically it's a lot of chillies. Clockwise: roa (a type of fish unique to Manado) in chilli paste, cumi (or squids) in another type of chilli paste, stir-fry young papaya flowers (which has a bitter after taste, but apparently it's one of their specialty) and bebek (or duck) in rica-rica sauce (just more chillies!) LOL!

I gotta acknowledge this though. Before I started living in Jakarta, I like my Malay food but that is just about it. However Jakarta changed my taste buds. I adore the various sambal and chilli paste that are used to cook meats and seafood in or simply serve up as condiments. If you are like me and adore your sambals, this is THE place to go. :)

 Certainly, Beautika has not forgotten its roots....

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Beautika Restaurant
Jl. Hang Lekir No. 1, Kebayoran Baru
Tel: 021 - 722 6683
Fax: 021 - 739 6137

Eats: Omakase kaiseki @ Xenri

Last month, we got treated to an omakase kaiseki dinner by Lil' Sis because she got a mini reward for hitting her sales target. She took Hubs and me to this nice Japanese restaurant called Xenri at Menara Hap Seng.

Omakase is Japanese for "I'll leave it to you" which means that what we had that night was entirely decided by the Chef and based on what was fresh, seasonal and available that day. Kaiseki simply means a multi-course traditional Japanese meal, although at Xenri it was more fusion rather than traditional.

First course: Smoked duck salad with toasted peach in foie gras sauce. This itself blew us away. Absolutely *heart* the tender and smoky duck breast that was balanced with lightness and fruity taste of the peach and various salad greens.

Second course: Whelk sashimi, spotted shrimp marinated with grape fruit and kampachi marinated in yuzu. When this was presented at our table, again, we were bowled over by the presentation. Including the young couple sitted at the next table, coz they kept stealing glances at our way. Lol! The captain patiently explained what was presented at each course and taught us the way to eat this is to start with the lightest flavoured sashimi, followed by medium to the heavy flavoured ones. Which in this case was the whelk, followed by the shrimp and lastly the kampachi. It was just heavenly! The whelk was fresh and had a crunch to the bite, I loved the hint citrus from the grape fruit on the shrimp, while the kampachi was fresh and firm.

Third course: A consomme of sea bamboo, sea aspragus and seasonal flowers from some lake in Japan. This consomme was light with a hint of smokiness to the palate. I was rather fascinated by the seasonal flowers that were covered with a gelatinous layer as you can see in the picture below. 

Fourth course: Baked Tuna jaw marinated with yuzu miso, with junmai daikon. The tuna had a sweet and almost-caramel like taste with a tangy hint from the yuzu. The daikon which was marinated in junmai (rice sake) was a nice and light balance to the somewhat heavy taste of the tuna. 

Fifth course: Wagyu short ribs with deed fried gobo (burdock root). By the time we reach this course, Hubs and me were quite full, especially after the tuna course. This was quite rich in taste as well, and personally I didn't enjoy this as much as I would like.  

Lil' Sis fifth course. Since she had the wagyu short ribs on her previous trip with clients, Xenri offered her a different dish, which was French meltique beef with shishito. According to the captain, meltique beef uses the unique technique of inserting soluble oil into cuts of lean meat to baste the meat internally during the cooking process, which in this instance was just a simple grill. The beef was almost wagyu-like in texture and was nicely balanced off by shishito, which is a type of sweet Japanese pepper.

Finally the sixth and last course. Yanaka ginger custard with merlot reduction, Spanish melon, US cherries and persimmon. I would dare say that this is a very fusion and East-meet-West invention. Yanaka ginger is young Japanese ginger that was blended into the custard. A rather acquired taste but somehow everything worked together: the mildly sharp taste of the ginger, sweetness from the melon and persimmon and slightly tangy cherries.

It was a very memorable and highly satisfying culinary journey. No wonder Lil' Sis was telling me so much about this place after her first visit with her clients. :)

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Xenri D' Garden Terrace
Lot No. 2-04, Second Floor,
Podium Block of Menara Hap Seng
Jln. P Ramlee, 50250 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 2078 6688

Here comes the ambulance... NOT!

Had a really funny encounter on the road yesterday morning. Just as we were about to enter a tunnel with heavy 2-way traffic while on the way to Hub's office, I heard a yelp siren in the distance. Immediately in my mind, I was thinking "How on earth is the poor driver going to maneuver our car to the side and allow the ambulance to pass through in such heavy traffic and limited space? This is a must-watch!"

And so I waited as the siren got closer and closer. As I heard the siren passing by our car, I looked out and LO and BEHOLD!

It was an ordinary citizen on his scrambler that was fixed with a yelp siren and the hazard lights a-blinking!

And I blinked stupefyingly.

There was a short moment of silence between Hubs and me before I commented "I seriously thought an ambulance was on its way and was wondering how is Sumiran going to let it through in that tunnel!" And we both laughed.

"Well that's Jakarta for you," was Hub's comeback.

Indeed.

Travellin' with cold chain

OK.. this is a first. I'm heading back to Jakarta tomorrow and will be hand-carrying some pretty important meds on cold chain. These were prescribed to me last week and have to be kept cool between 2 - 8 Celcius for optimal activity. Even when I left the clinic to head home after the doctor's visit, the nurses gave me a cooler bag with 3 dry ice packs to ensure that the meds are kept cool at all times. I have to start self-administer these meds in 4 days time while in Jakarta and my doctor had provided me a Customs clearance letter to explain that these meds are for me. Exciting times ahead!